Bringing Down the Machine
by andrewwinn3
Summary: Based several months after the end of Feed, with Titus attempting to bring down FeedCorp.


"Oh, yes we heard about Violet Durn." The street we are standing on is full of crap that had washed up from the ocean, but no one gives a f*** what happened to all the s*** they throw into the trash, so they just let it sit there. No one really walked anywhere either way, so it didn't matter.

"We feel really sorry for what FeedCorp did to her. Is there anything we can do to help?"

"No, it's fine," I reply. "Unless you're gonna' try and take on FeedCorp." A company like the one that makes the Feeds has way too much power to care anything about lousy citizens like us. If they did, they wouldn't have let Violet's brain get so screwed up like it did. They would have given a d**n about people. Real people. But they don't. They're fancy-pants companies with their fancy-pants currency and they don't give a s*** about real people.

"What do you think we've been trying to do?" Albert (at least I think his name is Albert) picks up a hunk of metal off the ground and chucks it at a passing upcar, although it comes nowhere close. "Now with all this hubbub with the Global Alliance, Feed is just trying to stay on the good side of both the US and the rest of the world, so this seems like a perfect opportunity to try and turn the public against them."

It is seven months after the disaster with Violet, and since then I've taken the advice she gave me before she bit it. I figured out how turn off all the marketing s*** on the Feed, but it still has to keep running so I don't end up in the same shape as her.

I am a changed man. I even started walking places, like on the ground. Like between cities. Link and Marty thought I was crazy, but I don't care; I don't hang out with them anymore anyways now that I don't fit. These bonkers protesters fit me better now, and a lot of them have even heard of me and Violet, as our story has been circling around, mainly because of the s*** FeedCorp put down on her.

"We need to get something started Al; here, come inside with me..."

"...ok, do we have ourselves a plan?" Al nods, and I grin. After hours of planning in some abandoned coffee shop on the street where the protesters were, we finally have a good idea of what the h*ll it is we are doing.

"Are you sure we really want to start this?" I ask him.

"What other choice do we have? FeedCorp will keep brainwashing people unless someone stops them."

Our plan is to bring down FeedCorp by trying to un-brainwash its users. Al is going to get us set up with some kick-a** connections with the other protesters and I will organize an effort to attack FeedCorp directly.

We leave the beat-up street and go back to the cheap hotel that we are staying at. It is getting dark by the time we get there, so after a brief recap over the assault on FeedCorp, we go to bed for the night and get ready for tomorrow.

"What the h*ll is that noise?" I awake to Albert's yelling accompanied by the loudest d**n knocking I have ever heard. It sounded like there was an entire army outside our door.

"Those FeedCorp b****rds! What are they doing here?" In any situation other than this one, Albert's attempt to look out of the peephole of the shaking door would have been comical, but this was not a time to laugh.

I start scooping up all of our stuff and putting it back in our bags. No time to spare, Albert grabs a chair from the room and throws it through the window overlooking the upcar lot. The banging on the door continues as we step over the jagged glass. D**n glass. _Why would anyone want to look out the window anyway? It is the same synthetic s*** on both sides of the window, so might as well look at the hideous floor._

Albert jumps first and a little cloud of dust comes up from whatever it is he lands in. I jump down and land next to him in the same pumice-like grit. There is a dead forest surrounding the town and Albert and I both know that if we get to it, those sons-of-b****es are sure to give up. _Just run, Titus! Run, run run._

We turn the corner to where we can see the forest. The road ends, but we keep running across the soot.

"Did you here that?" Al yells.

"What?" I turn my head and see some Feed people running a couple hundred meters behind us. _F***!_ I turn my head back around straight and just keep running. If we can just make it to the forest, we will be able to hide from them and get to safety.

The forest is getting closer. _Just keep running._ Finally, we get into the forest and start climbing over the burnt trees for shelter.

It happens in an instant: the click, the boom, the pain. I fall over and land on a tree stump. The pain in my leg is awful, but I am still conscious. _The f***ers had a grenade?! _Al hauls me up to where I am sort of sitting. I am yelling at the top of my lungs, but he manages to stay calm.

"They are gone," he assures me. "Just control your breathing."

I am not sure how he expects me to do that, but I try my best.

"It isn't as bad as it feels." His comment is followed by the most intense pain I have ever felt as whatever the h*ll was in my leg suddenly leaves it. "Just keep breathing. You had some shrapnel in your leg. I look down and see a bloody nail by my foot. _After vowing to take down the largest company in the country, am I really going to die of tetanus? _Then I look at my calf and see a hole oozing blood. _Aw, crap._ To make it worse, I then vomit. _Stupid digestive system, always getting in the way of things._

"Why did they attack us?" I ask Al. "Could they have overheard us?" Then I realize what a horrible situation we are in. _The very corporation we are trying to overthrow can monitor our thoughts. S***!_

Albert seems to be thinking the same thing. "We just need to keep going. There is nothing we can do about it other than try and limit our thoughts that they can pick up."

We keep walking for the rest of that day, taking occasional breaks to fix the bandage on my leg. We know it is about 50 miles to the FeedCorp headquarters, and we know the general direction, so we just keep pushing ahead.

"This is it?" Al nods. We are standing in the shadows of the FeedCorp International headquarters. The most menacing building I have ever seen, it towers above the rest of the indoor streets of the city.

"We are really going to bring this down? Like demolish it? And destroy the company?" Al just keeps nodding.

"What else would we do? Only a direct attack will be strong enough to bring down the company. If we tried to be diplomatic about it, it would all be in vain because the brainwashing has taken all the reason out of this country."

We decide to be "tourists" of the facility to gather information, so we try to ask as mainstream as possible, and even brainstorm all the things that people with Feeds do – blending in is key.

Soon we are standing in the visitor room, not believing we are actually doing this. I wink atd Al as we walk into the control room.

"_This building is the largest one in the complex," _a computerized voice says. _"This is where we keep all the servers that run the connectivity data for the Feeds. It is completely controlled by robots and is the main asset of the company, other than our customer base of course."_

_Yes. I see. I see your cruel game. You own nothing but these d**n servers, yet you have the control of the entire society in your hands. You evil scum you own us._

"_Any questions?"_

"Yes!" My reply is picked up by hidden microphones somewhere in the catwalk over the server room and the robot voice responds.

"_What?"_

"Where do you get all the power to run this thing?"

"_Our electricity is provided by on-complex ion power plants, one for this server network and one for the vitals servers that control our clients' breathing, pulse..."_

I turn to Albert and smirk. We have all the information we need_._

The protester group surrounds us as we sit behind the behemoth FeedCorp building. Our black-hatters, as well as white-hatters for the black-hatters huddle around their homebuilt external computers (quite rares sights), hacking the power plant's system. After our combined hours of hacking, battle planning, and general preparation, we are finally ready to infiltrate FeedCorp.

We walk over to the wall of the power plant and watch Al. Taking some homemade gun powder from a bottle, he pours it inside an old can, seals it shut, puts a fuse in, lights it, and runs like h*ll. The fuse burns out just before the can explodes and the wall crumbles just enough to fit a man through. Perfect.

We enter the plant and skirt around the edge until we find the computer room. The plan is to put the virus on the power plant computer, causing the centrifuges to spin out of control and explode, which will thus shut down the Feed servers, leaving the population open to de-brainwashing.

Frankie, the strongest guy in the group, walks up to the door and kicks it down as if it were a piece of fruit. So far we haven't been spotted by human nor robot.

Robert, the head hacker, starts to transfer the files over to the main computer. Everything is going fine, but it will take a while, something we do not have. We just stay low, trying to stay out of sight when we hear the alarm.

_S***! They've caught us!_ I peer over the window to see a mass of robots abandoning their posts to look for the intruder, us. Robert is in the corner, begging the transfer to keep working when we hear an announcement:

"INTRUDERS DETECTED IN THE MAIN COMPUTER ROOM! INTRUDERS DETECTED IN THE MAIN COMPUTER ROOM!"

Guards storm up the ladder while robots encircle the pillar that supports the room. Robert yells something that sounds like "49 percent!" but it is hard to hear him over the alarms.

The rest of us run to the door and start throwing anything we can over the edge: computer parts, boxes, even more homemade grenades, although they did not detonate properly.

Robert is still yelling out numbers, and the guards are still climbing up, but now we are being shot at from the catwalks. Rifle fire echoes through the plant as windows shatter and bullets whiz past our heads.

The barrage does not stop, though, and Freddie goes down from a bullet in the shoulder. We do everything we can to keep the upload going, and finally, Robert yells out "One-hundred percent!"

_Thank God!_ The virus is on the computer and will do its work.

We clamber onto the roof of the plant and start running. We need to get as far away as we can away before it explodes. All of us, including Freddie are running as fast as we can when we hear the rip of the centrifuge and brace for total h*ll.

I go flying from the blast and land on the outskirts of the compound, barely conscious. I can feel my femur is broken and my head seems to be bleeding, but I smile and force a laugh.

Society is free.

Everything has gone.

Everything has gone.

Everything has gone.

Everything has gone.

Everything has gone.


End file.
